The article I chose to analyze was particularly interesting because it has to do with unions and the right-to-work laws that were enacted to allow employees to choose to participate in unions, if available. The right-to-work law is ultimately a right to a worker in an unionized firm the right to choose whether to join the union (Mankiw, (2015). There are currently 24 states that have right-to-work laws and the majority of the state representative in this article are a pro not to work laws in their state because it provides the worker with options and the freedom to make their own choice. Having right-to-work laws seems to promote job growth but reduce wage increases due to the lack of backing power from a union.
General Economic Principles …show more content…
Making decisions requires trading off one goal against the other. In this particular case, employees had to decide if they want to be part of an unionized business without paying dues (Fillion, 2016). With the right-to-work laws that were passed, it allowed for more competitive jobs in the states. A choice that is made by employees is the possibility of having lower wages since there is no union to ultimately fight for your rights.
A second economic principle is rational people think at the marginal level. A rational decision-maker takes action if and only if the marginal benefit of the action exceeds the marginal cost. The pros and cons, according to Roger Fillion, of the Right-to-Work laws are different for everyone. Some of the pros …show more content…
It may be that is due to the general wage increase contracts that unions negotiate for workers. Since there are lower union dues being paid into the pool, there is little or no effort into possibly negotiating a wage increase. At the same time of more and more states wants to be part of the right-to-work laws, there is political battle of increasing minimum wages. It seems that if minimum wage is dramatically increased, it will result in higher price of goods and services and slower production from companies because they have to recoup the funds somewhere: unemployment. I suppose not having the support from a union will hurt a worker in the case of minimum wage
General Economic Principles …show more content…
Making decisions requires trading off one goal against the other. In this particular case, employees had to decide if they want to be part of an unionized business without paying dues (Fillion, 2016). With the right-to-work laws that were passed, it allowed for more competitive jobs in the states. A choice that is made by employees is the possibility of having lower wages since there is no union to ultimately fight for your rights.
A second economic principle is rational people think at the marginal level. A rational decision-maker takes action if and only if the marginal benefit of the action exceeds the marginal cost. The pros and cons, according to Roger Fillion, of the Right-to-Work laws are different for everyone. Some of the pros …show more content…
It may be that is due to the general wage increase contracts that unions negotiate for workers. Since there are lower union dues being paid into the pool, there is little or no effort into possibly negotiating a wage increase. At the same time of more and more states wants to be part of the right-to-work laws, there is political battle of increasing minimum wages. It seems that if minimum wage is dramatically increased, it will result in higher price of goods and services and slower production from companies because they have to recoup the funds somewhere: unemployment. I suppose not having the support from a union will hurt a worker in the case of minimum wage